If taken in the whole context you could translate it as 'pure and pleasant aftertaste'. You can also consider the term 'clean and bright' in lieu of pure.
In wine terminology it is can be referred as 'good length'
Well that is just my personal interpretation.
Cheers!

Teaism wrote:If taken in the whole context you could translate it as 'pure and pleasant aftertaste'. You can also consider the term 'clean and bright' in lieu of pure.
In wine terminology it is can be referred as 'good length'
Well that is just my personal interpretation.
Cheers!

Thanks Teaism for a more complete explanation. Your Chinese is much better than mine.

颖秀 is being used to describe a tea: does this just mean "excellent, outstanding"? The metaphors to grain heads and ears are throwing me off--are they just for color, or are we talking about an agricultural feature?

UPDATE--I just called it "refined."

Last edited by Evan Draper on Aug 25th, '13, 14:00, edited 1 time in total.

茶荷 is your tea presentation vessel. 荷 can be pronounced hé, which means "lotus" or "water lily" but 荷 can also be pronounced hè, which means "to carry something." I hear a lot of people saying it's a "tea lotus," which is very poetic and all, but I don't think anyone would have started calling it that unless it was first meant as a "tea tote" or "tea caddy."

I guess it's not as either/or in Chinese as it is in English--it might be as if our name for the plant was the "caddy plant" or the "tray lily." But do you hear Mandarin speakers call this a hé or a hè? (Apparently it's "ho4" or "ho6" in Cantonese, which seem devilishly hard to distinguish.)

Evan Draper wrote:What's the difference in Chinese between "third leaf" and "three leaves"? A sentence on plucking standard is driving me batty.

UPDATE--I'm assuming they would have used 第 if they were talking about "third leaf."

Generally speaking, but not always, "three leaves" would be prefaced with the proper measure word: 三（個）葉子 or 三（個）茶葉 or 三（片）葉子。Here 個 is the general, all encompassing measure word and 片 is the more appropriate and descriptive measure word because it is used to describe smaller, flat objects. And yes for the usage of 第。If there was a wish to refer to the third leaf then the reference would generally be something like "第三（個／片）葉子。"

茶藝-TeaArt08 wrote:Generally speaking, but not always, "three leaves" would be prefaced with the proper measure word: 三（個）葉子

No such luck.
Original: 采摘标准以对夹二､三叶和一芽二､三叶为主。
My translation: "the correct plucking standard is to pinch off two or three leaves and a bud–-fundamentally the two or three leaves."
Neither was I sure exactly how 以对夹 was contributing to the sentence. But I'm generally satisfied with what I've got.You can see more here.

茶藝-TeaArt08 wrote:Generally speaking, but not always, "three leaves" would be prefaced with the proper measure word: 三（個）葉子

No such luck.
Original: 采摘标准以对夹二､三叶和一芽二､三叶为主。
My translation: "the correct plucking standard is to pinch off two or three leaves and a bud–-fundamentally the two or three leaves."
Neither was I sure exactly how 以对夹 was contributing to the sentence. But I'm generally satisfied with what I've got.You can see more here.

"The correct plucking standard is to pinch off two or three leaves and a bud–-fundamentally (the) two or three leaves."

As far as the meaning goes that translation is solid。 以對來 is, more or less, "in order to"....so you have that in your sentence translation already. 為主 is "mainly." All in all seems like a solid translation to me. As a reader, the translated English sentence could have a little more flow. Obviously, and this is the hard part with translating, the English sentence could be written many ways to bring across the meaning. I would leave out the "the" in the second clause and "fundamentally" might flow better to me if it was translated as "generally." But the routes one could take with translation are many. Being that Mandarin lacks articles and is more direct and clipped （ex. 你要不要？。。"you want not want?") than English, proper flow from the Mandarin into English is often an issue with translating from Mandarin to English.